'Odd Mom Out' star Jill Kargman on the metrics of motherhood and working with Drew Barrymore

June 20, 2016

Best-selling author and actress
Jill Kargman is back and ready to navigate more hilarious adventures in motherhood in the latest chapter of the hit comedy Odd Mom Out (Jun. 21 shomi). The 41-year-old New Yorker promises Hello! Canada that the show's sophomore season will feature some spectacular guest stars, like her former sister-in-law Drew Barrymore, and LOL-moments from its cast of outrageous "momzillas."

Here, the mother of three opens up about the familiar faces coming to the Upper East Side, how the metrics of motherhood are always changing and why her character hits close to home.

TAP FOR GALLERY Jill Kargman tells Hello! that she has enough material for nine seasons!

Tell us about the celebrity guest stars on season two. They’re so great! Drew Barrymore plays my neighbour and Meredith Vieira plays my shrink. And an icon who I’m so excited about is Molly Ringwald. We’ve been so lucky I can’t even get over it. My parents are [played by] Blythe Danner and Dan Hedeya. Blythe is amazing!

The show isn’t just about the plight of the rich and the super-rich, right? It’s about fitting in and keeping up. Even if you’re doing well there’s people who are doing better. And even though the yard sticks change from location to location -- maybe it’s cheerleading in Texas or dogsledding in Alaska -- there’s still yard sticks and there’s still metrics where people create these echelons to ascend to feel better about themselves as mothers

Jill's former sister-in-law Drew Barrymore guest stars in season two.

Is your character, Jill, an exaggerated version of you? I would say it’s a version of me when I was 28. I don’t give a [darn] now what anyone thinks, where as then it was a really raw, vulnerable time in my life. I had three children in four years. We were in a fourth floor walk-up with no nanny, no night nurse, nothing. I was really struggling to keep my sanity, keep my happiness. I felt, of course, “hashtag-blessed,” [laughs] but it’s still a huge challenge every day. Luckily I had a conduit -- I channeled it into my novel Momzillas. But it was that time when I felt like I was getting everything wrong. I was juggling and I was dropping balls everywhere.

Odd Mom Out follows the lives of mothers living in New York.

How do your kids feel about the show? They’re really into it. My kids were actually in the pilot and I had to fire them because the network said I’d have to pull them out of school. That was the first time I’ve had all three kids sobbing at the same time. I sat them down and I told them and they all three burst into tears hysterically crying. It was kind of sad. But I wasn’t willing to pull them out of school. They were upset but I think one day they’ll understand and appreciate it.

Like your character, you famously live in the world you satirize. What is the secret to not losing your outsider perspective? Just because the nature of where I live in this rare petri dish -- even though I’m in the less chic part of it -- I feel like I’m just exposed to so much excess and lack of values that’s it’s easy to satirize. It’s like fish in a barrel. When people said last year “were you ever worried that you would go through all your material,” I was laughing. Like I could do nine seasons of this right now!

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